It’s an agonizing moment of truth, isn’t it?

The Never Trumper is an interesting political character. The term usually refers to Republicans/conservatives/moderates who refused to acquiesce to the Trump takeover of the GOP in 2016 — with its remarkable pivot to protectionism, non-interventionism, stricter immigration control, and cult-like leader-worship.

I happily joined them — and was, in fact, one of the first. For me, Trump’s direct contempt for liberal democracy and the authoritarian vibes of his candidacy — along with his truly despicable character — rendered him beyond the pale. I even endorsed Hillary, for Pete’s sake. In 2020, Biden was equally a no-brainer as the only feasible way to prevent a Trump second term.

But Hillary and Biden were one thing: two centrist Democrats with quite moderate, pragmatic pasts. Kamala Harris is another thing entirely: a politician who has fervently embraced identity politics as central to her understanding of the world, and is the most left-wing candidate to be nominated for president by a major political party in American history. What’s a conservative Never Trumper to do?

The record is somewhat difficult to ignore: Harris favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings, free healthcare for all illegal immigrants, funded bail for BLM rioters, abolition of private health insurance, a ban on fracking, and replacing ICE — “starting from scratch.” She is committed to the woke concept of “equity”, which means ensuring that all identity groups in America “end up in the same place” by government intervention. She favors what we now know are irreversible medical experiments on gay, autistic and trans children. She supports reparations for slavery. She wants to inculcate the core ideas of critical race, gender and queer theory in public schools from kindergarten onward.

The Never Trumper is thereby confronted with an inevitable tension. Not voting for Trump is an easy call, of course. But actually voting for the most left-wing candidate in US history — and one in the vanguard of the new left’s woke cultural revolution — forces us into a new, and awkward place: abandoning almost all our previous principles for the sake of preventing one man’s return to office.

For some, of course, there is no tension. Michael Steele, who has become an MSNBC leftist, memed with glee. Adam Kinzinger put the case for Harris most succinctly: “She’s not Donald Trump.” And if you believe that Trump is an existential threat to democracy and the rule of law itself, this obviously makes sense. All policy questions should be subordinate to deeper Constitutional concerns. I get it.

But the case, I’d argue, is not as strong in retrospect as it was in advance of 2016, and Trump’s failure to seize any serious kind of extra-constitutional power while in office — despite obvious opportunities to do so, especially during Covid and the BLM riots — suggests he has always been less interested in power than glory, which makes him less dangerous. January 6, of course, shifted the equation yet again — especially given his endorsement of political violence. And the greater organization of the far right in 2024 also suggests caution. It’s getting ugly out there.

But with Harris, we don’t just have a leftist. We have someone intent on ending any kind of color-blind meritocracy in America and replacing it with equity-based, systemic discrimination against “oppressor” groups in favor of the “oppressed”. That is as radical an assault on liberal democracy and a free society as the authoritarianism on the right. That its diktats are enforced by teachers’ unions, activist journalists, DEI consultants, and federal bureaucrats doesn’t lessen its unaccountable clout. And so far, what passes for Harris’ campaign is largely identity-based. Instantly and instinctively, her supporters divided into ethnic and demographic groups, segregating men and women, white and black, as wokeness demands. White Dudes For Harris! White Women For Harris! AANHPI for Harris! LGBTQIA2S+ for Harris!

And check out Michelle Goldberg’s column today on the new identity-rooted euphoria: “This is not only a political movement. This is a social movement. This is an inflection point. And this is, to me, a spiritual movement,” says one enraptured Dem. For some others, “the prospect of seeing a woman of color defeat Trump promised cosmic justice for the monumental insult of the 2016 election.” The core appeal is race and sex, as one woman explained:

And so I can look at you, you can look at me, and we’re two women, and we get it. I’m telling you something. I go on my walks in the morning, I see women of color, and we just look at each other. And we just smile like, yeah, sis, we got this. We got this.

Some formerly moderate Never Trumpers have responded to this identity lovefest by simply changing their policy views to the far left. Jennifer Rubin now holds positions almost diametrically opposed to the ones she held a few years ago — and advocates for them with equal passion. Others, I suspect, favor foreign policy interventionism above all else. For David Frum, Harris is “the only hope for Ukraine, for NATO, for open international trade, for American democracy, for a society founded on the equal worth and dignity of all its people.” Ukraine First!

Others argue that Harris is not really a leftist — just check out her record as a tough, no-nonsense prosecutor and attorney general in California. She’s just an opportunist and went super-left in 2019 and 2020 because she thought that’s where the votes were. So all she needs to do now is to junk almost all her previous positions and pivot aggressively to the center.

Harris has indeed begun to do this without any explanation — she’s suddenly in favor of fracking and more border security for unknown reasons — and a few more Sister Souljah moments and we’re told she’ll be home and dry. Jonah Goldberg — the most consistently conservative Never Trumper — put it candidly:

That’s what I mean when I say I hope she’s a fraud. I want her to be a fraudulent ideologue and reveal that she’s an authentic politician. I want her to listen to voters who think the left is too statist, too obsessed with identity politics, too un-American, and say, “I hear you” and move toward them.

Or as a friend of mine put it recently: “Can’t we all just admit we went crazy in 2020, didn’t really mean it, and start over?” Ah, if only they would!

And I can see why this pivot to the center could work, given the amnesia of the American voter and the 24/7 MSM propaganda campaign. But I also see how such an obviously cynical play could backfire, and how Harris’ real weaknesses — her inauthenticity and insecurity — could be more thoroughly exposed if her flip-flops snowball. There are a lot of clips of her leftist statements. It won’t be easy to ignore them.

So where does that leave me? I have to say I just don’t know. I’m torn between profound disagreement with Harris on principles/policy and the sheer relief that there is some chance we can avoid a second Trump term. Maybe the issues really don’t matter anymore — and we’re in a vibocracy where the feelings of novelty and youth and generational change can sweep everything before them. Maybe it doesn’t matter that Harris has been controlled as Palin was from the moment she got the nomination: no press conferences, no interviews, only set speeches and vague platitudes. Maybe getting rid of Trump is worth a new wave of woke Kulturkampf. And maybe Harris’ truly dreadful record as a campaigner outside California — and worse rep when it comes to managing and keeping competent staff — can also be waved away.

I don’t know, to be honest. I simply don’t know if I can vote for her in good conscience. The veep decision will tell us more; and the debate will be crucial. Don’t rush me! But the good news is that we have a viable choice again; we have time to stress-test this new candidacy; and it feels to me as if American democracy is alive and engaging again. If Harris’ unlikely ascension has achieved only that, it will have been worth it.

Jeffrey is a lawyer, author, and the chief legal analyst at CNN, after a long run at The New Yorker. He has written many bestselling books, including True Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Oath, The Nine, and Too Close to Call, and two others — The Run of His Life and A Vast Conspiracy — were adapted for television as seasons of “American Crime Story” on the FX channel. We talked about the Supreme Court and the recent decision on presidential immunity.

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — why the Bragg conviction helped Trump, and the origins of lawfare with Bill Clinton. That link also takes you to a bunch of commentary on Anne Applebaum’s appearance last week, and more on the Lionel Shriver and Stephen Fry pods. Plus, more reader dissent and other comments on Harris and the presidential race.

In what might be a useful moment to take stock, Chris and I are taking our planned, annual vacation for the next two weeks. (I also have a funeral to attend and a mother to grieve.) See you at the Democratic Convention!

One of the core aspects of liberal society is the distinction between public and private life. In theocracies and totalitarian and illiberal states, privacy distracts from the demands of the collective theology or ideology. A private zone suggests there are limits to the ideological struggle; it proposes a realm where people can share friendship despite political disagreement; or engage in activities like sport or the arts that leave politics behind.

If everything is politics, life becomes impossible. Friendship — one the highest virtues — is particularly vulnerable. And that’s why the story in the NYT this week where Sofia Nelson, a transgender friend of JD Vance, released troves of private emails and text messages exchanged between them was so troubling. It was troubling because of the friend’s breach of basic decency and civility; and because the paper of record had no apparent qualms in publishing it.

The exchanges, to my mind (and top commenters’ at the NYT), speak well of Vance. He’s engaged, listening, compassionate, and even self-deprecatingly funny: a conservative very willing to debate liberals with honesty. He’s obviously not a bigot, and there are moments when he evinces real grace with Sofia. It was a real friendship:

Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, said they visited each other’s homes, talked on Zoom during the pandemic and exchanged long emails discussing a range of subjects, from the minutiae of daily life to weighty discussions of current events and public policy issues. Nelson attended Mr. Vance’s wedding in Kentucky in 2014. They pondered doing a podcast together — he suggested they call it “The Lunatic Fringe.”

And then Sofia turned on him. The reason? Vance’s support for an Arkansas bill banning sex reassignment for children before they have gone through puberty. Here is Vance’s given reason:

I recognize this is awkward but I will always be honest with you. I think the trans thing with kids is so unstudied that it amounts to a form of experimentation.

And, of course, Vance is right, as the Cass Review has definitively shown. It’s why the new British Labour government has now banned the use of puberty blockers for gender dysphoric children. But Nelson will have none of it:

It deeply saddens me that you feel that way especially given that it has been studied and there is a consensus in the medical and psychological professions, the treatment is completely reversible, is only given after extensive therapy, with the consent and desire of child and parents, and saves lives.

But none of that is true. There is clearly no consensus, the treatments are not reversible, they are given as soon as a child says they’re the opposite sex without extensive therapy (such open-ended therapy is actually being banned), and there is no reliable evidence that these experiments have saved or cost lives. But Nelson is a “gender queer pragmatist,” whatever that means, and is committed to the ideology above any notion of friendship, civility, or decency.

Turn every aspect of private life into a zero-sum ideological vetting and you will make the kind of conversations Vance and Nelson once had rarer and rarer, and the chance to resolve our differences through debate and discourse will attenuate even further. The airing of these private conversations does nothing but render our discourse cruder and our democracy less stable. And it wounds me deeply that among the most illiberal, intolerant and downright dishonest movements in America today is what’s left of the gay rights movement. Sofia Nelson epitomizes it.

Honiara, Solomon Islands, 10.15 am

“If we take a show of hands of those who would like to see more police officers on the street, mine would shoot up. A more visible and strategic police presence is a deterrent to crime, and it has a positive impact on a community,” – Kamala Harris, in her 2010 book Smart on Crime.

“It is outdated, and it is actually wrong and backward to think that more police officers will create more safety,” – Kamala Harris, June 2020.

“If the GOP promoted a ‘White dudes for Trump’ event, it would be on the front page of the Washington Post and New York Times. Rachel Maddow would tell her audience that Trump wants to bring back segregation. Universities would issue statements vowing to resist white supremacy,” – Aaron Sibarium.

“What’s interesting is [Vance’s comments on childless women] is this natalism that comes from an authoritarian playbook, right? That there need to be more ‘White children,’ right? That’s the idea. This is about great replacement theory racism, right? … So don’t misunderstand it for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of racist thing,” – Molly Jong-Fast on a man who has three biracial children.

“The sense of disappointment and distress conveyed by the court is so palpable, because it recalls no instance in experience over 47 years as an advocate and as a judge in which the conduct of the attorney general’s office so thoroughly departed from the high standard it represents,” – Judge Leslie Nichols on Kamala Harris as California’s attorney general.

On the dubious record of Kamala Harris, a reader writes:

So she’s said some stupid things. Are you going to do an apples-to-apples comparison between her and Trump when it comes to crazy, dangerous and disingenuous promises made? Even if suddenly candidates were forced to actually act on campaign promises, I think the country would be in less danger if the stupidest of the laundry list of her promises actually became law. Surely you agree. And those promises will not be realized anyway, since she would run the country like a second Biden administration.

You’re treating this election like it’s some quaint disagreement about policy by two candidates, either of whom will uphold at least the most essential aspects of the oath of office. But this is not Clinton vs Dole, or Obama vs. Romney. This is about a traitor who attempted to use violence to stop the peaceful transition of power; who lied multiple times about stealing vital documents; who we all heard cajoling an AG to “find” him votes; who we all heard threaten an ally that he’d withhold congressionally-allocated aid unless the ally created a fake investigation of the his political opponent’s son.

The country is divided into those who are members of a mad, ear-bandage-wearing cult that is dead-set on destroying the country and its alliances throughout the world, on the one hand; and on the other …. well, who cares?

This reader doesn’t:

Your evisceration of Harris was complete and, as is your usual practice, well-documented. Her woke record could be disastrous for her candidacy. But that won’t be the version we will see going forward, as she will have the benefit of a new set of advisors captained by the Obamas and featuring a cadre of Dem realists (yes, they do exist), who will be riding herd on her more progressive impulses and making sure she has little to laugh about for the next three months. That last part shouldn’t be too difficult. She will be the managed, not the manager; and unlike Trump, she has the capacity to listen and learn.

One should never discount the short memory and shorter attention span of the American public. Besides, we love a good rebirth story.

Another is succinct:

Listen, every politician worth her salt evolves with time. So please, give her a fucking chance to surprise you.

I will. Stay tuned. Another reader finds my critique “not only tired, but incredibly shallow”:

This kind of lazy attack is precisely what perpetuates the toxic political environment we find ourselves in today, and it’s well beneath a writer of your skill and imagination. To suggest that her selection is a sacrificial move, or a mere token gesture, is to undermine the significant strides she has made in her political career. And more importantly, it underestimates the intelligence of the electorate.

Your mention of Harris’ laughter and demeanor smacks of misogyny, plain and simple, and it’s pretty gross. Such scrutiny is rarely, if ever, applied to male politicians. When men laugh or show emotion, it’s often seen as relatable or charismatic. But when Harris, a woman, does it, she’s labeled as “not serious” or “insecure.” This double standard is not just unfair; it’s a glaring example of the gender bias that still pervades political commentary. Would a male candidate ever be dissected with such trivial criticism?

Yes. What about the constant mockery of Trump’s orange skin tone, bleached coif, thicc backside, or dancing like he’s jerking off two dudes? Or the gawking at Matt Gaetz’s Real Housewives makeover at the convention? Or Biden’s own botox, and hair plugs? Or Rudy’s infamous hair dye? Or the turtle jokes about McConnell? Or Fetterman’s baggy clothes? Remember those white boots that DeSantis wore during Hurricane Ian, and all the scrutiny of his height-boosters in general, snickering at his stature?

You know what’s “lazy”? Reducing substantive critiques of a presidential candidate to charges of misogyny.

As far as a pol’s laughter, remember The Daily Show?

Another dissent:

I think you are being too harsh on Harris and her chances. She might be the worst surrogate on the Democrats’ worst issue, immigration, but she is also a vastly superior spokesperson on their best: abortion. (Many years ago you published part of what I wrote about my family’s situation: my late wife was diagnosed with cancer while we were trying to conceive our second child. Those few weeks remains among the most gut-wrenching of my life.)

Harris is by all accounts the very model of what we would all hope for in a step-mother, and the blended family they have raised is to be commended. On the other side we have old “grab ‘em by the genitals,” who’s had five kids with three wives, affairs and sexual assaults, and whose current wife seemingly can’t stand him any more than his previous ones did. And he partnered up with Vance, who says childless adults do not have a stake in America. Trump and Vance are seriously fucked-up men way outside the mainstream of American life, and Harris is well-positioned to hammer that home.

One more dissent for now:

I have not been a Harris fan. I think she’s a typical fake politician, long on ambition and short on vision, and something of a condescending California liberal to boot. (One way to show that this is not just about race and gender is that her political sibling, Gavin Newsom, has basically all the same attributes and would be unpopular with most of the same people.) I was excited about the idea of a contested convention back in the spring, but I’ve been persuaded that Biden let things go too long to really pull that off now.

You’re wrong, though, to call her the “wokest” candidate. Yes, all of us progressives got out of hand in 2020 — a kind of madness from lockdown, social media, Trump outrage, and the horror of the Floyd murder. I’m sorry you were a victim of that madness. While the Trump campaign is free to use Harris’ bad proposals from that era against her, I don’t think it’s honest of you as a journalist to act like that’s where she stands now. The fever has broken. And someone like Harris, who seems to follow which way the wind blows and the donors whisper, will be fairly moderate in the current climate.

I am hopeful she can pull off a victory, be a somewhat lame but normal politician, and get us a few steps closer to conflicted but less-chaotic politics. Wouldn’t that be a relief?

It would. I’m just not sure that the fever has broken.

The dissents continue on the pod page, arriving in your in-tray soon. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

In a week of constant “weird” talk, here’s Al Yankovic with a polka compilation of pop hits:

• The latest on Venezuela’s bloody election. What are the possible paths?


• Noah Smith details how Maduro wrecked the economy. Applebaum sorts through the ashes of the political culture.


• Bari honors the freed press in the prisoner swap.


• After the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, what’s next?


• David Lat remarks on the three SCOTUS reforms that Biden proposed this week.


• Joe Klein reflects on the identity politics of Trump and his Drumpf forefathers.


• Erickson sees Trump getting “distracted by distractions” after a disciplined debate.


• Is Harris bringing back the Obama coalition? “Not even close,” says Teixeira.


• Will her big Sister Souljah moment be Josh Shapiro? Could he swing Ohio?


• With the death of Lt. Calley, Sy Hersh recalls how he broke the My Lai story.


• How statutory-rape laws became sex-neutral.


• Check out Dan Ackerfeld’s monthly Essay Club.

Where do you think? (The cartoon beagle is hiding a clue.) Email your entry to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. Proximity counts. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a View From Your Window book or two annual Dish subscriptions.

See you on Friday, August 23.